Volume 9, Issue 17
What is paramount is that government remedies for societal ills are spiritually approached with the creed that national identity depends upon generational continuity.
The purposes of AFP are meritable. However, like many government projects, very little consideration is given to the impact on generational moral bonds. It is not just generational wealth that is critical to the economic stability of society, it is also the generational purpose of economic fulfillment. Different people pursue different vocations. Taxing the economic system to pay for well-intentioned projects, without consideration of the impact on legitimate family-owned businesses, is short-sighted and destructive.
President Biden has called for a substantial increase in the capital gains tax. Taxing capital gains differently from ordinary income is designed to incentivize investment. It also allows for generational businesses to manage long-term capital assets. Further, the Biden administration is seeking a new tax on the transfer of wealth from one generation to another in addition to inheritance tax. It has long been the goal of progressives to limit the transfer of wealth.
Many in Congress see family wealth as an undeserved privilege that supports economic class divisions in society. Sometimes this wealth distinction is just one generation. A Wall Street wolf reaps what appears to be obscene profits through the financial markets and passes millions of dollars of inheritance to the next generation. Progressives believe that transfer of money should be limited, restricted, and ultimately redistributed by government. Without such government control, they argue that the playing field will never be level.
There are examples of family legacies that render virtue for a nation’s core strength. A family-owned farm requires more than one generation to reach its potential of production for the nation’s benefit. An ancestor may have established the farm in the land run. He cleared the fields and lived in a sod house. Subsequent generations added cash crops and built a viable agricultural business. Succeeding generations modernized the process and still live in the original homestead. No generation ever made more than a modest income. The Biden tax plan, if not amended, may necessitate the selling of the farm to pay the “transfer” tax. There is a $1 million exemption. But who is to determine that $1 million is the standard valuation in every state, pursuant to every asset, without consideration for whether it destroys the livelihood of the generation impacted?
Progressives go so far as to argue that the only factor that matters is equal outcome of economic prosperity from generation to generation. Government must level the playing field each time a generation passes.
One point of their argument is that births out of wedlock continue to rise as a result of lack of equality in economic opportunity. Therefore, government must intervene to restructure a flawed system.
They completely disregard the intervening effect of government programs that change the behavioral attitudes of those served by the government policy. Before the New Deal, literacy among the poor was twice as high as it is today. Child poverty has not declined measurably since the enactment of the Great Society. Welfare has been institutionalized as an acceptable economic class.
The question is not, should we support the poor with programs. The answer is absolutely. A just and caring people must take care of each other. However, part of the answer lies in respecting the economic bonds of the generations as equally important. We must be sensitive to generational connectivity as a priority rather than to government dictates. We can do both.
Perhaps liquid assets could be taxed differently than fixed assets. Also, means of production should be exempted along with $1 million in appraised value. The mission is to see the benefit of economic generational building blocks as essential to the overall health of future societies.
The motto on the U.S. dollar is Novus Ordo Seclorum, a new order for the generations. This is the reason the Founding Fathers gave European intellectuals for declaring independence and going to war with the greatest sovereign power at the time.
The United States is one of but a few countries that has no national ethnicity. We are the ultimate melting pot. The point of the motto is that birth is not destiny. No titles or privileges are inherited. Yes, land was passed by inheritance. And, in the beginning, not all Americans received equal constitutional rights. But the foundational purposes of taking the risk of war for freedom were pure in intention in that the generations yet to come would benefit.
Biblically, mankind is told to honor one’s mother and father (the Fifth Commandment). Children are to be brought up in the ways of God-given eternal principles (Proverbs 22: 6). In ancient China, a grandfather would start an ivory carving, determining by design that it would take the next two generations to finish it. Whether biblically or historically, society has always maintained principles from the past to be projected through a generation in the future. The present generation was never to take more than it gave. And a current society was never to believe, in its arrogance, that truth only existed in the present.
The connectivity of the generations economically, religiously, and morally, is what has been critical to the stability of society since the beginning of time.
The generational moral imperative is that the sovereign, cultural, moral intent of righteousness in the pursuit of happiness, is nurtured and protected throughout the ages.
As the quintessential melting pot, this generational morality is what defines America.
My name is Marc Nuttle and this is what I believe.
What do you believe?